Following on from yesterday's conference call, here are a couple of points that we need to consider when building the capability to model zoonotic diseases.

1. Although a few diseases (such as hantavirus) are directly transmitted from animals to humans, most are transmitted via a vector. Although STEM currently supports different transmission rates between different populations, it doesn't support different mixing preferences. To make this clearer, consider that there is one mouse and one elephant, each being bitten by the same population of mosquitoes. Is it reasonable that the probability of infection is the same for both of them? The elephant is bigger and will likely be bitten by many more mosquitoes. On the other hand, some vectors have a strong preference for certain species, and bite others only rarely.

2. There is currently no support for migration per se in STEM. What is currently implemented is dispersal, or diffusion. We need two things to support true migration. Firstly, there must be different flows between different cells, whereas at the moment the flow of individuals is determined only by the density gradient (I believe). Each cell should have an "attractiveness" which determines the flux from neighbouring (or connected) cells. Secondly, it should be possible to vary the "attractiveness" of each cell with time, otherwise we will not be able to model seasonal migration such as with birds.

concerning the migration issue and beyond:
For me it would be helpful if we could in a first step agree on a common nomenclature within our community.
In the wiki on transportation Jamie described the future implementation of migration and mixing: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Transportation_Models . As far as I understood your suggestion on "attractiveness" I think this could be solved with the suggested concept on migration between node as well. Concerning the time dependency of these migration rates my suggestion would be to implement that as a Trigger / Modifier.
What do you think about that?

Interesting, does the Wiki have no spaces for STEM or similar projects?
I suppose, not too many projects end up with "Transportation Models", but
some like Eclipse for Automotive may consider that something different ;-)

Adding to 1., is HIV similar to the hantavirus considered transmittable from
animals to humans, or is transmission by eating monkey meat unproved?

I know, we are not directly modeling diseases like HIV, but its case also
add the option of certain species (like some apes) being infected with the
virus, potentially even spreading it to others, but not getting sick
themselves.

Those in the US may want to speak with Anthony Fauci, if you ever wish to
extend HIV knowledge. He leads the CDC or a similar institute dealing with
infectious diseases. And just spoke in Vienna at that conference going on
now.